The Soul Consortium (5 page)

I set my briefcase down at the end of the bed, opened it, selected a pair of latex gloves and a syringe, which I placed on the dressing table. I rolled the gloves onto my hands, flexing my fingers, checking for holes. “Get up, Kriefan.”

At first all they did was open their eyes and blink. Then he turned, sat upright, and thrust his back against the headboard as if an invisible hand had slammed him there. “Shit!”

She was still blinking, trying to work out where she was.

Kriefan stared. “Bloody
hell!”

His wife’s lips trembled when she realized this was reality. There really
was
a prowler in the bedroom tapping a syringe. She looked ready to yell, but I lifted a finger. “I wouldn’t. Your children are asleep. It might be best if they don’t see what’s about to happen, Mrs. Mack.”

She started to shake, and Kriefan turned his bed lamp on to full, panic scoring deep lines into his face. I could see a hundred different scenarios running through his head just by watching his eyes. He was wondering if he could take me.

“You! You’re the man that helped me out of my car,” he said, squinting. “What’s this about? How the
hell
did you get in?”

“The usual way,” I said, waggling the key.

“Oh, God!” Mrs. Mack screamed as though someone just showed her a plate with someone’s heart still beating on it.

“If your children see me they’ll die too,” I shouted, pressing my hand to the door in case they came running in.

Kriefan shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re doing in our house, but if you don’t get out right now we’ll … Kelly, where’s the mobile?”

It was on her bedside table. She was reaching for it.

The children started hammering on the door, yelling, crying.

Kriefan jumped out of bed, fists balling, jaw stiffening. He was about to attack.

No problem. I snatched his hand and bent it against his forearm before launching him at the door in case the children came in. His head cracked on the handle, and I stepped over him to get to his wife. The children were still shouting as I snatched the phone from her and slammed it into the wall. With a slap I sent her reeling across the bed and turned to Kriefan. He was already back up, distracted by the blood in the palm of his hand and the cry of his wife, his face a portrait of confusion, fear, rage, desperation.

“Bastard!” He came for me again, and I met him head-on. His knuckles struck my cheekbone, but my fist plunged into the soft spot beneath the rib cage, forcing the air from his lungs. He folded as though the floor had fallen through the ceiling, and the contents of my briefcase scattered across the carpet as he curled up into a groaning ball. Needles and pens danced across the carpet; documents fluttered through the air.

“Angus,” cried his wife to her children, “take Rachel. Get out of the house as fast as you can. Run!”

With Kriefan on the floor moaning in pain I faced her, put her down too with a crack across the jaw. Sobbing, she crawled into the corner, her head in her arms. I know people like her. She wouldn’t bother me again, and when the noise of the children had gone I knew I could indulge.

“You’re both going to die. You know that, don’t you?”

Kriefan looked up at me, sweat running from his brow. “Why?”

“Why doesn’t matter. What matters for you now is how.”

“Look, can’t we just … talk … about this? I don’t know what I’ve done but I …” He trailed off into tears. “Oh, God … my kids … Oh, God.” He was stalling for time, knowing the police would be here in minutes.

I had to work fast, so I kept my victim pinned to the carpet and straddled his chest, reached for the syringe. “Listen carefully. You’re going to die.” I cupped his chin in my hands, felt his sweat through the latex. “You can’t change that because it’s your fate. I promise it will be painless if you cooperate, but if you struggle, your wife’s death will be agony.”

“Why? God! Why?”

“Focus, Kriefan.” I gripped his head tighter, staring hard into his wide eyes, preparing myself for the moments I so enjoy. “Do you understand me?”

He stared.

“Do. You. Understand?”

His eyes said yes, and I felt his muscles relax beneath me. One hundred milligrams of pancuronium bromide injected into the bloodstream and in less than a minute he’d be completely paralyzed, then seconds later he’d be dead. I stared into his eyes, tried not to hear his final whine of self-pity as I emptied the fluid into him.

Deeper. Penetrating the black center, searching the soul.

Deeper. Watching for the end.

Deeper. It’s intoxicating sharing those final moments of terror when every part of the body stiffens.

I saw it: the moment of death.

In that infinitesimal blink of time a multitude of experiences winks out of existence, never to return. It simply disappears. I gasped, as if the air had frozen in my lungs. After seeing this so many times and feeling the pleasure of it, the power never dwindles, never fails to deliver that exquisite rush. But still death’s secret eluded me. There is a profound difference between eyes that are alive and eyes that are dead. Not focus. Not dilation of the pupils. Something else. Some place far deeper than I can go.

I allowed the body to drop, and I looked over to his widow. She was not crying any longer, just cowering in the corner with her arms wrapped around her knees, a single strand of saliva crawling from her lip. She knew what was coming, and I reluctantly obliged, dispatching her quickly and with a silent prayer for her soul to be at peace. She did not deserve this, but she is, nevertheless, the penalty for her husband’s borrowed time.

In echo of the accident two days ago, blue and red lights glared through the gaps in the curtains. If the police knew what was happening they would not have made such a bold announcement of their arrival, but still, whether they catch me or not, Fate had caught up with Mr. Mack and things were right again.

But there was no time to appreciate it. I gathered up the contents of my briefcase that had been littered around the room, thrust all of it back inside, slammed it shut, and hurried out of the room and down the stairs. The front door was open, and three police cars were blocking the drive. It would take a miracle to escape unnoticed.

I edged forward. There were no officers waiting for me at the door. I stepped out onto the drive, waiting to be thrown to the ground or perhaps even shot, but still there was no one, not even inside the cars. I checked the surrounding houses. The neighbors, all awake now and leaning from their windows, were not looking my way. Instead their attention was drawn to an event occurring several houses down. A small man in a long black coat, hunched like something heavy had grown out of his back, ran at surprising speed in the road followed by six police officers shouting for him to stop. Incredibly convenient. Perhaps one of those rare moments when Fate chose to intervene. None of the Macks’ neighbors saw me as I left the house; none of them knew the real killer had slipped into a side alley.

It was the closest I had ever come to capture, but rather than celebrate my good fortune when I returned home, I sat in the dark, fearful of where my dreams would take me should I sleep. My thoughts were filled with the image of that strange man to whom I owed my escape. Even with a glance I knew something about him was profoundly wrong. That was the first time I saw Keitus Vieta. I wish now it had been the only time.

I
met Keitus Vieta the very next night.

Despite my habit to plan each of my murders with meticulous pride, the episode with Kriefan Mack had been as sloppy as it was ugly. In my youth I would never have been so careless as to dismiss the need for a gun to threaten or duct tape to restrain. Last night was pure carelessness, falling into apathy and nonchalance—the one shortcoming the police wait for. Cautious murderers are never caught until they become overconfident or are moved by some inner desire to end their reign. Only then do they begin to leave clues for their trackers. I was determined this would not be my failing, yet the incident at the Mack household had been a wake-up call.

After checking my briefcase I found at least two documents missing, probably still under their bed after the contents had been scattered during the fight. It was the one place I neglected to check before I left. The question, therefore, was whether the police would make the same oversight. Doubtful. The law had not pounded its heavy fist at my door during the day, so I could only assume they had found nothing yet, but surely it was just a matter of time.

One must not rely on Fate to cover one’s mistakes, so, forced by my own conscience to make amends for my blunder, I returned to the Mack house. Fate would decide if my capture would happen that night, but my hope was that she would reward my bravery with her special intervention and keep me in her service. Naturally, I would not tempt her further by making more mistakes, but flawless plans can only be prepared if one is in possession of all the facts and in command of every detail, and when I slipped into the Macks’ drive again at midnight, I soon discovered that I had neither under my control. Someone else did.

A single police car was parked outside the house. At first I assumed by the position of the officers’ bodies, with their necks leaning back over their seats and their faces pointing heavenward, that they were both asleep. But as I crept closer I saw that both men had their eyes open. Not dead, though. Their chests rose and fell with comatose breathing. I stared for all of two minutes, trying to discern who or what could have done this.

Staying low, out of sight, I inched toward the car and looked through the driver’s window, ready with a story in case I was mistaken about their condition. But I wasn’t. After glancing around I opened the door, sniffed the air for signs of drug abuse, but smelt only the evidence of excretion; a wet patch had darkened the driver’s trousers. One hand lay limp on his lap, and the other hovered upright over the gear stick, fingers arching and twitching like the legs of a half-dead spider. With dread nibbling at my spine, I looked closer at the man’s eyes.

I know eyes. I know them very well. But this man’s unblinking organs had a madness about them I could not recognize. Dilated but somehow alert. Rapt yet full of pain. And I saw them plead. A single tear trembled, then traced across his skin, down to his ear. I stared, fascinated, then studied the other man. He too was looking at me, the same vacant yet imploring expression, willing me to do something.

I released a long sigh as I withdrew from the car, as if I had held my breath the whole time. I wondered if this was Fate’s work, but no, this was not her way. Someone or something else had changed these men, and with a determined effort to master my growing fear, I turned my attention to the house.

The taped barrier had been broken. The front door was open.

I stepped over the threshold, peered up the stairs and into the shadows; there was no light other than the moon’s faint strands filtering through gaps in drawn curtains. Someone shuffled behind the door of the main bedroom. If not the police in this house, then who? The unexpected odor of formaldehyde poisoned the air, bringing with it the demented ghosts of hospitals and asylums in which I had once lived, then irrational imaginings of long dead victims waiting for me in the next room.

I licked my dry lips and pulled a pistol from my coat pocket. I had never used it, probably never would—to bring about death in such a crude fashion would be like roasting the goose, then tossing it in the gutter—but a gun is always a steadfast deterrent.

I cursed each step as the boards creaked beneath my weight, then paused to listen for the cessation of movement behind the door when I reached it. Whoever it was still seemed to be unaware of my intrusion. I waited by the door, calmed my breathing. The shuffling continued, and I concentrated on the brass knob of the door in a futile effort to distract my brain from attacking me with images of terror at what might be waiting.

The shuffling finally stopped. A low whisper followed in syllables as long and dreadful as an icy breeze in summertime. “Killer.”

I considered turning around. Running from the house. Even turning myself in to the police just to get away from that voice, but I stood my ground for reasons only Fate knew.

The knob turned with the speed of a second hand on a clock, and when the door eventually eased open, I gazed into the dark, desperate for confirmation that the voice came from a human and not an ungodly specter.

A figure stirred in the shadows, crawling across the floor by the bed. I said nothing when he looked up at me, and my legs refused to move when he rose to a stoop. He was little more than a dwarf in height, devoured by a heavy black coat, and although the only illumination entering the room came from misty moon threads, an indigo radiance lit his face from beneath. My gaze was immediately drawn to the source: a glittering stone in the thorny handle of the cane clutched in his left hand. In the half-light it was a diseased knuckle extending as a long index finger to scratch the floor.

The shape of his head beneath his bowler hat suggested this to be a man of considerable age. In his right hand he held one of my missing documents, which he raised above his head, turning it slowly in the air. “Idle hands, Mr. Roth,” he whispered, his voice like the moan of a leaking gas pipe.

Clouds shifted outside the window, throwing more light into the room and on the intruder to expose the visage of a grinning death mask. Bruise-blue eyes bulged from sunken sockets within a face so ravaged by age the water-thin skin appeared as if his naked skull had a layer of chewed gum stretched over it. Even the pulsing veins weaved between the many liver spots were laid bare in plain sight.

Suppressing my fear, I stood to my full height and looked down on him. “You know my name.”

The old man stared at me, his huge eyes unblinking. “I know you. I know … your work.”

I pushed the gun toward his face, the barrel a mere centimeter from his pallid forehead, only to feel a sudden chill, a profound sense of danger, as if I were a cocky child who had placed a banger inside the mouth of an alligator and dared myself to hold it there. I lowered the weapon, and the old man’s lips stretched to uncover hoary gums and crooked teeth. It couldn’t really be described as a smile.